22/10.2017, Voters in two of Italy’s wealthiest northern regions, Veneto and
Lombardy. Voted overwhelmingly for greater autonomy. On a turnout of 58% in
Veneto and hust over 50% in Lombardy, over 95% of votes were for more autonomy.

4/12/2016, Matteo Renzi, Italian Prime
Minister, resigned after a referendum rejected his government reform proposals
by over 60%.

13/2/2011, Women across Italy
protested against Berlusconi.

1/1/2008, Malta adopted the Euro.

20/7/2001, The 3-day 27th
G8 talks began in Genoa, Italy, sparking major protests by anti-globalisation groups.

28/3/1994, Silvio Berlusconi became Prime
Minister of Italy.

1992, The Northern League (Lega Nord) won over 50 seats in the General Election. The Northern
League was resentful of taxes generated in the prosperous north of Italy being
used by Rome to support the poorer South, and wanted an independent State in
northern Italy, so-called Padania.

7/1/1990. The Leaning
Tower of Pisa was closed to the public for the first time in 807 years so
work could begin to stop it leaning any further; the leaning rate had
accelerated. After nearly 12 years of repairs costing 53 billion lire that
reduced its lean by 44 cm the tower re-opened in December 2001, and was
expected to be safe for another 2 or 3 centuries. Parties of up to 30 are
allowed up on guided visits. The Tower of Pisa is the bell tower for a nearby
cathedral, and its construction began in 1173, and continues with two long
interruptions, for nearly 200 years. Designed to be vertical, a lean developed
during its construction.The walls at
its base are eight feet thick, and it has 294 steps. Injection of cement into
the base in 1934 had accelerated the lean.

6/9/1987. The historic Venice regatta was held without
gondoliers for the first time since 1315. The gondoliers were on strike as a
protest against the damage to the fabric of Venice caused by powerboats.

23/12/1984. Terrorist bomb killed 29 on
a train in Bologna, Italy.

22/12/1984, Dom Mintoff resigned as
President of Malta.

24/9/1983, In Italy, the executives responsible for the Seveso dioxin disaster were jailed.

4/8/1983.Bettino Craxi became Italy’s first Socialist
Prime Minister.

18/3/1983, King Umberto II of Italy, in
exile since 1946, died in a Geneva clinic aged 78.

3/9/1982, Anti-Mafia chief murdered in Rome.

2/8/1980, A right-wing terrorist bomb hit the railway
station at Bologna, Italy, killing
85 people and wounding over 200.

31/3/1979, The British Royal Navy finally withdrew from Malta.

9/5/1978.The body of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro
was found in the boot of a car in central Rome, a victim of the Red Brigade.

16/3/1978, In Rome, former Prime Minister Aldi Moro
was kidnapped.

13/12/1974.Malta became a
republic within the Commonwealth.

21/9/1964. Malta became
independent of Britain, after 164 years of British rule.

9/10/1963, Three thousand were killed as the Vaijont Dam burst in the Italian Alps.
Despite warnings that the valley sides were being destabilised as the dam
filled, work continued until a rock slide hit the site.

28/12/1947, Victor Emmanuel III, King of
Italy from 1900 until he abdicated in 1946, died.

15/9/1947, The Free Territory of Trieste was created as the Peace Treaty
with Italy came into effect.

17/4/1947, In Rome, a mob of about a
thousand unemployed workers staged a noisy protest outside the Parliament
building, stopping private cars and sometimes beating the occupants. One of
those assaulted was Italian Foreign Minister Carlo Sforza, who was
struck by several fists as he stepped out of his car to go to his office. The
Foreign Ministry said that Sforza had been shaken but not seriously hurt.

28/6/1946, Enrico de Nicola became first President of Italy.

27/6/1946, Italy ceded the Dodecanese islands to Greece.

11/6/1946, Italy was
officially declared a Republic.

3/6/1946, King Umberto II left Italy, to join his family in Lisbon.

2/6/1946, A referendum in Italy produced 12.7 million votes
for a Republic and 10.7 million votes for continuing the monarchy.

9/5/1946.King Victor Emmanuel III, monarch of Italy
since 1900, abdicated. He was succeeded by Umberto II. A referendum voted
narrowly for a republic on 2/6/1946. Enrico de Nicola became the first President of Italy on 28/6/1946,
and Umberto
II left Italy on 3/6/1946.

1945, Alcide de Gasperi (born 1881)
organised the Christian Democratic party, and became Prime Minister of Italy.

15/9/1943, Three days after freed from imprisonment by
Germany, and seven weeks after his overthrow in July, Benito Mussolini was restored to
leadership of Italy by the Nazi occupiers; German paratroopers also landed in
St. Peter's Square at Vatican City in Rome, despite the Vatican's neutrality in
the warMussolini made his announcement
of a return to power from Adolf Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg.

11/9/1943, German Field Marshal Albert
Kesselring declared that all Italian territory was under German
military control, which former dictator Benito Mussolini would later describe as
reducing Italy to the status of a German "colony". Adolf Hitler
ordered that the occupied Italian territory be divided into three zones, with
the area around Rome extending south toward the front lines against the Allies,
the Alpine mountain region ("Alpenvorland") and the coast along the
Adriatic Sea ("Adriatische Kusterland"). Hitler also issued orders to deal
with any Italian military units that had gone over to fight for the Allies,
with all officers to be executed, and soldiers and non-combatants to be
deported to Germany as labourers.

9/9/1943. Allied forces landed at Salerno, Italy. King Umberto of
Italy left Rome and fled to Brindisi in the south. This was seen as
an abandonment by many Italians and contributed to the conversion of the
country to a Republic in 1946.

7/9/1943,
Suspecting that Italy was about to make peace with the Allies, German troops quickly
occupied Italy, especially its airfields, to forestall a complete Allied
possession of the country. However the entire Italian navy escaped to Malta,
thereby freeing up Allied ships for combat in the Pacific or Atlantic.

19/7/1943, First
Allied air raid on Rome. The raid was a political warning that Mussolini’s
regime must be overthrown.

1942, The Christian
Democratic Party was founded. It was clandestinely anti-Facist, and in fact
largely secular. Until 1993 it formed a large bloc in every post-War Italian
government; however it began to be plagued by acusations of corruption, and by
1993 its popular support had completely evaporated, The Party disintegrated
after 1993.

7/4/1939. Italy mounted a surprise invasion of Albania, seeing
it as a bridgehead for an invasion of the Balkans. King Zog fled the country. They
began an invasion of Greece from Albania on 28/10/1940. They were driven back
by the Greeks who occupied most of southern Albania. However the Greeks were
beaten back in April 1941 when the Germans occupied Yugoslavia, Albania, and
Greece. From 1944 on local partisans, aided by the British, drove Axis forces
from much of Albania, also eliminating anti-communist forces. See 11/1/1946.

11/1/1939.Neville Chamberlain visited Mussolini to discuss recognition of the Franco
regime in Spain.

17/12/1938, Italy denounced
the Franco-Italian agreement of 1935.

14/12/1938, The Italian
Parliament was replaced by a Fascist Chamber.

3/5/1938. Hitler and Mussolini met in Rome.

16/4/1938, Chamberlain, British PM, sought to dissuade Italy from allying
with Germany.

11/12/1937.Italy left the
League of Nations.

6/11/1937.Italy joined the
anti-Communist pact between Germany and Japan.See 25/11/1936.

2/6/1937, German War
Minister Werner
von Blomberg began a three-day visit to Italy to discuss
German-Italian military ties.

2/1/1937,The UK and Italian governments made an agreement, to curb dangerous
levels of friction between the two in the Mediterranean.

1/11/1936.Mussolini announced an anti-Communist ‘axis’ with Germany,
and urged France and Britain to join.

3/3/1936.Mussolini nationalised the Italian banks.

18/12/1935, In response to
Leaague of Nations sanctions, Mussolini appealed to Italians to donate their
gold wedding rings to the government, in exchange for steel ones, also other
gold, to help the invasion effort. Many Italians responded, and a total of
33,622 metric tonnes of gold was handed in.

19/10/1935, After Itlay’s invasion of Abyssinia, the League of
Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy. Meanwhile it was apparent that
Italy’s African possessions could not provide economic self-sufficiency for
Italy, and the country would never be self reliant in key raw materials sources
such as oil, coal and metals. This pushed Italy into a closer partnership with
stronger, industrialised, Germany.

24/1/1935. Mussolini dismissed the Italian Cabinet.

18/9/1934.Mussolini said
all Italians from the age of 8 must have military training.

15/6/1934. The dictators HitlerandMussolinimet for the first time, in Venice.

20/10/1933.Mussolini denounced Roosevelt as a dictator.

21/5/1933. Britain signed a ten-year non-aggression pact with
Italy, France, and Germany.

28/10/1932. In Rome the Via dell’ Imperio opened. It was part
of a grand plan for the reconstruction of Rome, initiated by Mussolini
in 1931. This was the tenth anniversary of the Fascist March on Rome.

6/11/1931, The Italian government awarded prizes to the
country's biggest families.

20/4/1929.The first Italian
Parliament composed exclusively of Fascists led by Benito Mussolini was
opened by King
Victor Emmanuel III.

24/3/1929.Mussolini’s single party Fascist state claimed it had won 99%
of the vote in elections.

1928, In Italy,
prefects could prevent people from moving from rural areas to cities. Mussolini
wanted to raise the birth rate, and urban women were more lilely to work and
have fewer children. In 1927 Mussolini had prohibited the Italian media
from promoting slimness in women, as that was also associated with a reduced
birth rate, he believed.

20/9/1928, In Rome
the supreme legislative body, the Chamber of Deputies, was taken over by the
Fascists.

12/5/1928.The Italian electorate was reduced from 10 million to 3 million, under
Mussolini.

12/2/1928. The British colony of Malta gained Dominion status.

12/1/1928, The Italian press was
banned from reporting suicides or sensational crimes.

5/4/1927, Hungary
signed a ‘Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation’ with the Italian leader, Mussolini.
Hungary needed allies, and Italy strengthened its influence in the Danube
Basin.

15/1/1927.Winston Churchill met Mussolini in Italy.

1926, The Balilla, the
pan-Italian Fascist youth organisation, was established. It cultivated Fascist
indoctrination of the Italian youth and promoted patriotism, It hosted youth
clubs, organised sports events and organised basic military training. Its
numbers grew aafter the Catholic Boy Scouts were abolished in 1928.

15/12/1926.The Italian
fascist party adopted the Roman symbol of authority, the fasces, or bundle of
sticks, and origin of the word ‘fascist’, as its symbol.

27/11/1926, Italy and Albania signed the Treaty of Tirana,
effectively making Albania an Italian Protectorate. Britain formally recognised
the Treaty, angering France, who saw the Balkans as their sphere of influcnce.

31/10/1926. An
attempt was made on Mussolini’s life. This gave him the excuse to
remove more civil liberties.

7/10/1926.Mussolini decreed the Fascist party to be the state Party;
all opposition was banned.

4/8/1926, Umberto Nobile was feted in Rome for his part
in the recent North Pole expedition, as 20,000 filled the square in front of
the Palazzo Chigi.

29/6/1926.In Italy, Mussolini increased the working day by one
hour.

7/4/1926.Mussolinisurvived an
assassination attempt.

12/2/1926.Mussolini outlawed strikes in Italy.

7/1/1926, The Royal Academy of Italy was created.

4/12/1925, The Italian Chamber of Deputies passed a law allowing
the government to regulate rates of industrial production based on the needs of
the country.

5/11/1925.In Italy, Mussolini banned all left-wing parties.

3/1/1925.Mussolini assumed full dictatorial control in Italy.He nominated his cabinet on 5/1/1925.

10/6/1924, Italian socialist
leader Giacomo
Matteotti was assassinated by Mussolini’s fascists. He had replaced Filippo Turati
as leader of Italy’s reformed Socialist Party, and on 30/5/1924 he denounced
the Italian elections of April 1924, in which Mussolini’s Fascists had done
well, as fraudulent.

17/4/1924. Mussolini’s Fascist Party won a sweeping victory in the Italian
general election.

27/1/1924.Mussolini signed a pact with Yugoslavia, and Italy annexed
the free city of Fiume.

16/7/1923.Mussolini banned
gambling in Italy.

9/6/1923, In Italy,
the Vatican ordered the Catholic Party to disband, and many of its members
joined Mussolini’s Fascist party. The Catholic Party, or Partito Popolare
Italiano (Italian People’s Party), had been formed in 1919;before then the
Vatican had forbidden Catholics to vote. In Italian elections in 1919 and in
1921 the Catholic Party received 20% of the vote, second only to the Italian
Socialist Party. Following Mussolini’s victory in 1922 Cardinal
Gasparri, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, made a deal with Mussolini
that the Catholic Church would support him; in return Mussolini would restore the
historic privileges of the catholic Church in Italy. In 1927 Mussolini was
baptised as a Catholic, and in 1929 he signed the Lateran Treaty, making the
Vatican a separate sovereign State. He also made Catholicism the State religion
of Italy, and paid the Vatican 750 million lire as compensation for the
Vatican’s loss of the ancient Papal States territory in Italy.

2/1923, Fascists were forbidden to be Freemasons; this
helped gain support for Fascism from the Catholic Church. The
Catholic Church was alarmed by the spread of Leftist influence and possible
Communist-inspired anarchy, especially in impoverished southern Italy, and saw
the Fascists as promising welcome stability. The Liberal Left would likely tax
Church property. The Fascists were also anti-contraception and birth control.

21/2/1923, In Italy
the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Vincenzo Cardinal Vanutelli, said ‘Mussolini
had been chosen to save the nation and restore her fortune’.

31/10/1922, Mussolini’s
supporters organised a mass rally in Rome.

30/10/1922.Benito
Mussolini took power in Italy.

29/10/1922, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy invited Mussolini to travel to Rome from
Milan to form a government. Mussolini’s Fascist Party had been founded in
March 1919, and was dissolved on 28/7/1943.

24/10/1922, A
mass rally of 40,000 Fascists at Naples.

31/7/1922, General Strike in Italy began in protest at the weakness of the State
in the face of Fascist agitators. Fascists used the Strike as a
pretext to seize power on several cities, including Milan and Genoa.

7/11/1921, Benito Mussolini, the 38 year old son of a blacksmith from the
Romagna, became leader of the Italian National
Fascist Party, with its 35 seats in Parliament. Black-shirted Fascist
sqaudristi roamed the country disrupting Communist meetings.

26/6/1921, In Italy, Prime Minister Giolitti fell. He was succeeded
by Ivanoe
Bonomi.

5/6/1921, Italy and Yugoslavia signed an agreement over
control of Fiume.

14/5/1921. Fascists won 35 seats
in Italian elections.

27/2/1921. Communists and Fascists
rioted in Italy.

12/11/1920, The first
Treaty of Rapallo was signed, between
Italy and Yugoslavia, settling territorial disputes in the Adriatic and
pledging collaboration to prevent a Hapsburg restoration. Istria, the territory
east of Venice, became part of Italy. The town of Fiume,
seized by Italian Nationalists in September 1919, was to return to Free City
status. However, although the Nationalists were ejected from Fiume by the
Italian Navy, Fiume did not regain this
status and in 1924, when Mussolini came to power, Italy abrogated these terms
and retained control of Fiume
(although Yugoslavia controlled the adjacent port of Susak). After World War
Two, Fiume became part of the
Republic of Croatia, itself a part of Yugoslavia.

1919, Italy had made
considerable territorial gains through the Treaty
of Versailles, adding some 14,500 square kilometers of land at Austria’s
expense. Italy gained the provinces of Trentino, South Tyrol and Istria, and in
1924 annexed the Free City of Fiume
(see 12/11/1920). Italy, however had hoped for more, such as some of Germany’s
former colonies.

19/11/1919, In Italy, Benito
Mussolini and 37 Fascists were arrested after rioting at the
election of the Socialists.

16/11/1919, First Italian
elections that were contested by the Fascists.
However the Fascists did badly,
receiving just 4657 votes out of 270,000 cast in Milan, supposedly a Fascist
stronghold. In Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace, not one vote went to
the Fascists. The Socialists,
however, did very well, gaining 1.76 million votes, their best tally to
date; they raised their seats from 52 to 156, and became Italy’s largest single
party. Socialist support had been boosted by the suffering of World War One,
especially in Germany and the troubles in Russia. The Popolari Party, run by Don Sturzo,
representing Catholics, the forerunner of the post-World War Two Christian
Democrats, also did well, gaining 100 seats. The Pope, who had previously
discouraged Catholics from voting, had now informally encouraged Catholic
support for the Popolari. The Socialists
were later undermined by the split in their ranks between the reformists
(riformisti) and the revolutionaries (massimilasti), the latter defecting to
the Communist Party in 1921. This split allowed the fascists to gain power.

12/9/1919, An unofficial Italian army under Gabriele
d’Annunzio seized Fiume,
before it was incorporated in Yugoslavia.

21/6/1919. Francesco Nitti became Prime Minister of
Italy.

23/3/1919The
Italian Fascist Party (Fascio di Combattimento) was founded in Milan by BenitoMussolini. The party aimed to fight both Liberalism and
Communism. The Fascists wanted land
for the peasants, abolition of the Senate, a seizure of Church property, and
tax reform. However most of this agenda was already offered by the Socialists
and by December 1919 the Fascists only had 870 members. During 1926 Party
membership rose from 600,000 to 938,000. By the end of 1933 there were
1,400,000 members, a figure that went up to 2,633,000 by 1939.

25/4/1915.Italy signed
a secret treaty, the Treaty of London, with Britain, France, and Russia.Italy agreed to enter the war on the Allied
side within one month in return for territorial gains.Italy was to gain the Austrian provinces of
Trentino, South Tyrol, Istria, Gorizia, Gradisca, and Trieste, also a large stretch
of the Dalmatian coast and islands, some Albanian territory around Valona, full
sovereignty over the Turkish-controlled Dodecanese Islands, the Turkish
province of Adalia in Asia Minor, colonial gains in Africa, and a share of war
indemnities.The Allies agreed to this
because they believed that Italian intervention would soon destroy
Austro-Hungary, opening the ‘back door to Germany’.Italy duly entered the war on 24/5/1915, but
the expected breakthrough against Austria never materialised.When the
Bolsheviks took over in 1917 they revealed the terms of this secret treaty,
which ran totally against the ethnic-determination principles of President Wilson of the USA;
he stated he did not consider the treaty terms as binding.At the Paris Peace Conference the UK and
France also opposed implementation of the treaty’s terms, and Italy received
far less than originally specified.This created popular resentment in Italy
and was a factor in the rise of Mussolini
and Fascism in Italy.

25/1/1915, Mussolini formed the Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionara in Milan.

30/3/1913, Censu Tabone,
President of Malta, was born.

For more on 1911-12 conflict between Italy and Turkey see Greece-Turkey

1912, Electoral reform in Italy extended the vote to all literate
men aged 21 and over, and all men aged over 30. This expanded the Italian
electorate from 3 million to 8.6 million. A subsequent electoral reform soon
after abolished the literacy requirement for man aged 21-30, further expanding
the electorate to 11 million, and was a measure to ensure continued popular
support for the Italian war in Libya. It was estimated that 70% of these new
voters were illiterate.

1911,The Camorra were suppressed. Starting as a band of prisoners
united against theirgaolers in Naples
in the 1820s, the Camorra entered Italian politics in 1848.

29/9/1911. Italy declared war on Turkey, having been assured of the neutrality
of other European countries.The
Italian Navy bombarded Preveza, and Italian forces landed at Tripoli and in
Cyrenicia. This was in retaliation for the alleged mistreatment of Italians in
Libya. The Italians expected the Arabs to welcome them as liberators from Turkish
rule, but instead the Arabs sided with the Turks in resisting Italian rule. In
May 1912 Italy invaded some islands off Turkey, including Rhodes, to put
further pressure on Turkey. Then Italy had some unexpected good fortune when in
1912 Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece started the Balkan War against
Turkey, forcing the Ottomans to surrender Libya to Italy. However Arab
resistance continued and despite a permanent Italian garrison of 50,000 troops
Italian rule only covered Tripoli and other major towns. At least, though,
Italy could now claim to have its own African colony.

3/1/1894, The
Italian government ordered the dissolution of the Fasci, and the arrest of their ringleaders. Over 1,000 people were
deported to Italian islands, often without trial. The Fasci were small
alliances, groups of radical or socialist academics and peasants, and some
anarchists, local gentry and Mafiosi. The name derived from the fasces, or
bundle, of sticks used in ancient Rome. Starting in Sicily in 1893 the Fasci
agitated for political ends, with strikes and riots, alarming the larger
landowners.

1893, 40,000 troops had to be sent to Sicily to quell unrest
there caused by poverty.

29/7/1883.Benito Mussolini, Italian
founder of the Fascist party and ally of Hitler, was born in Predappio, near Forli, a
town in the impoverished Romagna region of east-central Italy.He was the son of a blacksmith.

2/6/1882, Guiseppe Garibaldi,
Italian
soldier and politician who helped form the Kingdom of Italy, died
aged 74.

9/1/1878, Victor Emmanuel II, who became the first King of Italy in 1863, died of
fever in Rome aged 57. He was succeeded by his son Umberto, aged 33, who ruled
until his assassination in 1900.

10/3/1872, Guiseppe Mazzini, Italian revolutionary who fought for
his country’s unity and independence, died in Pisa.

1871, The Palace of the
Quirinal, in the centre of Rome, became the residence of the Italian Kings.

20/9/1870.Taking advantage of the French defeat at Sedan,
Italian troops under Victor Emmanuel II entered Rome and expelled the
Papal troops. Garibaldi had made several
attempts to take Rome with his people’s army, the last in 1867, but had been
defeated by the French. Now however Napoleon III had his troops away from Rome to
fight the Prussians. There was little resistance from Rome; the walls were
shelled, and breached at Porta Pia, and only a few lives were lost.

11/11/1869, Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, was born.

25/7/1866, The Italians were defeated in a sea battle against
Austria off Lissa.

8/4/1866.Bismarck arranged an alliance between Italy and
Germany. Italy promised to join Germany in was against Austria if war broke
out in the next three months.

15/9/1864, Under the ‘September
Convention’, Napoleon
agreed to evacuate Rome and Italy agreed to move her capital from Turin to
Florence.

28/8/1862, Garibaldi’s
army landed at Calabria en route to Rome.

6/6/1861, Count Cavour, the politician primarily responsible
for the unification
of Italy, died.

17/3/1861, Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy at Turin by the
country’s first Parliament.

2/1861, The formerly independent Grand-Duchy of Tuscany declared itself part
of Italy.

18/2/1861, The Italian Parliament opened at Turin.The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed.

21/10/1860, Several
territories in Italy voted with large majorities to join the emerging Kingdom
of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel, including the Marches and Umbria, as well
as the territories conquered by Garibaldi. This deprived Garibaldi
of political momentum. This was a relief to the rest of Europe, who had feared
that Garibaldi would overrun the
Papal Territories, destabilising other States in Europe. Garibaldi
handed power to Victor Emmanuel(see 26/10.1860) and retired to the island of Caprera.

6/9/1860, Francis II, last King of Naples., left the city which had
fallen to Garibaldi’s army. Naples ceased
to be a separate state and came under the Italian rule of King Victor Emmanuel.

20/8/1860, Garibaldi’s forces,
having conquered all of Sicily, crossed the Straits of Messina to attack the
Italian mainland.

6/6/1860, Garibalditook
Palermo.

5/5/1860, The
radical Italian, Garibaldi, striving for
Italian Unification, set sail from Genoa with his army of redshirts for the
port of Marsala in Sicily.

2/4/1860, The first
Italian parliament met, in Turin.

10/11/1859, A peace
treaty signed at Zurich ended the war between France, allied to Piedmont, and
Austria. The effects of the treaty were crucial in the unification of Italy.
Under its terms, Lombardy passed from Austria to Piedmont, with the exception
of the Quadrilateral forts (see 24/6/1859) which were retained by Austria.
Piedmont compensated France 60 million lire for
the cost of the war with Austria. Plebiscites were held in various territories
to determine which State they would join.

10/7/1859, The Treaty of Villafranca was signed, see 24/6/1859.
The war between France (allied with Piedmont) and Austria was finally
concluded by the peace treaty signed at Zurich on 10/11/1859.

24/6/1859, At the Battle of Solferino, Lombardy, Italy, the French under Napoleon III allied to Piedmont
defeated the Austrians. However the victory was costly for the French. Napoleon III
knew that his armies must next face the Austrians at the ‘Quadrilateral’, the
four fortresses of Legnano, Mantua, Peschiera and Verona, where the Austrians
had retreated northwards to, and opposition to the French would increase in
this region. Within France, the war against Austria was becoming unpopular as
army casualties, and deaths from a typhus epidemic within the ranks, mounted.
The war was expensive to France, There was also the question of what Britain
might do, being opposed to the extension of French power in Italy. Prussia’s
intentions, with its 400,000 strong army, were also uncertain. Therefore
Napoleon, without consulting his Piedmont ally, signed the Treaty of
Villafranca, see 10/7/1859.

23/4/1859, Austria
issued an ultimatum to Piedmont to disarm. This followed an agreement between
France and Piedmont to ally against Austria. This agreement was strengthening
the power of Italy (see 14/1/1858) and was a significant threat to the southern
flank of Austria. See also 3/5/1859.

14/1/1858, An
Italian assassin threw a bomb at French Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie
as they drove to the Paris Opera. The bomb, thrown by Felici Orsini, missed its target
but killed eight bystanders and injured 100. Orsini planned the attack in
London, causing anti-British sentiment in France. Napoleon III, now convinced of
the magnitude of nationalist sentiment in Italy, invited Count Cavour to the spa town of
Plombieres in the Vosges Mountains where the Plombieres Agreement of July 1858 was worked out. This Agreement
provided that Piedmont would provide 100,000 men along with 200,000 French to
fight Austria. After victory against Austria, three kingdoms would be set up in
Italy. Northern Italy would include Lombardy, Romagna, Sardinia and Venetia. Central
Italy would include Tuscany and the Duchy of Parma; the Papal lands however
would continue under the rule of the Pope. Thirdly, southern Italy, the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies, would be ruled by Luciano Murat, if its current ruler, Ferdinand II,
abdicated. A secret agreement of 24/1/1859 between France and Piedmont provided
that both would respect the sovereignty of the Pope.

11/11/1854, Mussolini’s
father, Alessandro,
was born in Montemaggiore, close to Predappio.

1850, Sicilian agriculture was being transformed after James
Lind, surgeon for the BritishNavy, calculated in the mid 18th
century that scurvy
had done more damage to the British Navy than the French and Spanish fleets
combined. Lemon juice was found to prevent scurvy, and Sicily was one of the
few places in Euripe where they could be reliably cultivated. Sicialian exports of lemon
juice rose 740 barrels in 1837 to 20,707 in 1850.

23/3/1849, Victor Emmanuel
II became King of Sardinia, on the abdication of his father, Charles Albert
(1789-1849), following the defeat of Charles at the Battle of Novara, against Austria. Charles had been assisting the Lombards in a
rebellion against Austrian rule, and had been defeated once before by Austria,
at the Battle of Custozza (25/7/1848),
by forces under Radetzky
(following this 1848 defeat, the Salasco
Armistice was signed).

9/2/1849, The Republic of
Rome was proclaimed by Garibaldi.
His Nationalist Army came under attack (from 30/4/1849) from a combined force
of French, Austrian, Tuscan, Spanish and Neapolitan troops.

26/8/1848.Garibaldi was defeated by the
Austrians at Morrazone.

13/4/1848.Sicily declared itself independent from Naples.

18/3/1848, Revolution broke out in Milan.

1847, In the Papal States,
the National Guard was set up to
keep civil order, by Pope Pius IX.

14/3/1844,Umberto I, King of Italy, was born in Turin,
the son of King
Victor Emmanuel I.

7/1831, A temporary volcanic
island, called Grahame’s Island,
appeared 50 km off Sciacca, Sicily. It attained a height of 50 metres and a
circumference of 2 km before volcalic action ceased in August. Thereafter,
erosion totally obliterated the new island.

4/1/1825, Ferdinand I,
King if the Two Sicilies, died aged 73. He was succeeded 47-year old son, Francesco I.

14/3/1820, Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia and first King
of a united Italy, was born.

28/9/1815, Joachim Murat,
former King of Naples, landed with only 30 men at Pizzon to try and regain the
throne. He was soon captured.

10/8/1810, Count Cavour, Italian politician who played a
major role in the unification of Italy, born in Turin.

4/7/1807, Giuseppe
Garibaldi, soldier who played a major role in the unification
of Italy, was born.

1802, Ludovico Manin, last Doge of Venice (born
1726), died. He was elected as Doge in March 1789. He both antagonised the
French by allowing sanctuary to those fleeing it, and refused to join the
league of Italian states proposed by Victor Amadeus III to counter French
ambitions. The French forced the Republic of Venice to capitulate in 1797 with
overwhelming military force.

1631, The independence of San
Marino was formally recognised by Pope Urban VIII.

See also Spain-Portugal,
1700-1718, for events related to the War of the Spanish Succession

17/11/1617, A naval battle between Sicily and Venice ended
inconclusively.

12/12/1602, Duke Charles Emmanuel attempted to take the
city of Geneva
by surprise, for the Kingdom of Savoy.He failed with heavy losses.

1594, The ancient town of Pompeii was (re)discovered.

1582, The Academia Della Crusca was founded in Florence, for the purpose of
maintaining the purity of the Italian language. In 1612 it published, for this
purpose, the Vocabulario della Crusca.

18/2/1564. Michelangelo Buonarotti
died in Rome, aged 89.

10/8/1557, The Battle of St Quentin. Spanish forces under the Duke of Savoy
defeated the French under the Constable of Montmorency. The French were
driven out of Italy.

2/8/1553, Battle of Marciano. A French army
invading Tuscany was defeated.

15/4/1542, Leonardo da Vinci was born.His father, Piero da Vinci, was a notary and
his mother, Caterina
da Vinci, was a peasant

6/1/1537, Alessandro de Medici was
assassinated

24/10/1535, Francesco Sforza II, Duke of Milan, died aged 45 without a successor. Milan
became a suzerainty of Charles V.

26/10/1530, The Knights of Malta were formed when the Knights
Hospitaller were given Malta by Charles V.

23/2/1530, Carlos
I of Spain was crowned Charles V of the Holy Roman
Empire and King
of Italy by Pope Clement V.

22/6/1527.Nicolo Macchiavelli
died in Florence, Italy, aged 58.

6/5/1527, German mercenaries sacked the city of Rome, an
event considered by many to mark the end of the Renaissance. This occurred
during warfare between the Holy League and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

24/7/1526, The Spanish captured Milan.

24/2/1525.The Battle of Pavia.
Pavia, held by the French, had been under siege by Spanish forces since October
1524. Italy itself was a territory being fought over by the rival powers of
France, Germany, Turkey and Spain. The French under King Charles
VIII defended Pavia with cavalry and cannon, but the Spanish had
adopted the arquebus or hackenbushe, an early version of the handgun; this
weapon replaced the Spanish crossbow. The
arquebus meant an unskilled infantryman could kill a skilled knight and Pavia
was the start of the dominance of the handgun as a military weapon.

2/4/1512, At the Battle of Ravenna, French forces defeated a Spanish
– Papal army.

29/4/1507, Louis XII, King of France, led his troops into
Genoa.

1506, Bologna was incorporated
into the Papal States by Pope Julius II.

29/12/1503, At the Battle of Garigliano, near
Gaeta, Italy, Spanish forces
under Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba defeated a
French-Italian mercenary army under Ludovico II, Marquis of Saluzzo.French forces withdrew to Gaeta.

13/5/1503, The Spanish captured
Naples.

7/9/1496, Ferdinand II, King of Naples, died.

18/12/1495, Alfonso II, King of Naples, died.

6/7/1495, At the Battle of Fornovo, the French Army secured
its retreat from Italy by defeating a combined Milanese-Venetian force under Giobvanni Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua.

28/6/1495, At the Battle of Seminara, Cordoba and Ferrante were defeated by a
French army under Bernard Stewart, Lord of Aubigny.

26/5/1495, A Spanish army under Gonzalo de Cordoba landed in
Calabria, to oust the French and restore Ferrante II to the throne of Naples.

22/2/1495, King Charles VIII of France entered Naples to
claim the city’s throne.A few months later
he returned to France with most of his army, leaving a force under his cousin, Gilbert Count
of Montpensier as viceroy.

8/4/1492.Lorenzo de Medici,
patron of learning and the arts, died aged 43, after a 23 year reign of
cultural enlightenment.

14/4/1489, The Queen of
Cyprus, Catherine
Cornaro, sold her kingdom to Venice.

3/5/1469.Niccolo
Machiavelli, Italian statesman and historian, was born in Florence.

7/10/1468, Sigismondo Malatesta, tyrant and
soldier, died.

1//8/1464, Cosimo de Medici died aged 75 in
Florence. He was succeeded as head of the banking family by his son, Piero.

1457, Death of Francesco Foscari, Doge of Venice from 1423.
He pursued an aggressive policy on the Italian mainland, gaining territories
for the Republic of Venice. However his rule was too nepotistic and despotic
for the citizens of Venice, who deposed him in 1457, shortly before his death
from grief.

9/4/1454. Three rival Italian powers – Venice, Milan, and
Florence – agreed to unite in an
‘Italian league’. Rome and Milan also seemed likely to join.

1299, Construction of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, began (completed 1301)

11/9/1298, The Governing
Body of Venice, the Great Council, accepted a further amendment (see 5/10/1286)
that entrenched the position of the existing ruling families.

1291, Venice moved its
glass ovens to the island of Murano, initially to limit the risk of fire to the city. However
this also facilitated restrictions on the movement of glass-makers, who were
forbidden under strict penalties to jeopardise Venice’s monopoly in fine
glassware by taking their secrets abroad.

5/10/1286, The Governing
Body of Venice, the Great Council, accepted an amendment that effectively
confirmed membership amongst the families of existing families (an earlier
proposed amendment on 3/10/1286 had failed). The governance of Venice began to
become more exclusive and autocratic, see 11/9/1298.

28/11/1284, Florence began to extend its city walls. The first
stone of the new walls was blessed this day.

31/3/1282, The French were massacred
in Sicily (Sicilian Vespers).The Sicilians resented Angevin rule.

30/3/1282.Peter III of Aragon opened hostilities against
Charles of
Anjou for possession of Naples and Sicily.This war was ended by the Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302.

26/2/1266, Manfred, King of Sicily, killed in the Battle
of Benevento.

4/9/1260, The Battle of Montaperti.

2/12/1254, The Battle of Foggia.

1194, Norman rule in Sicily ended with the
death of King
Tancred of Lecce, son of Roger III, who had seized the throne of Sicily
in 1189 when William
II died. Tancred was succeeded by his youngest son, William III.
However 8 months later Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, husband of Roger III’s
daughter Constance,
invaded sicily and was crowned in Palermon Cathedral on 25/12/1194. On
26/12/1194 Constance
gave birth to the future Frederick II.

29/5/1176, The Battle of Legnano; Italian city-states gained autonomy from the
Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. The Lombard League of
Italian towns, supported by Pope Alexander III, objected to Barbarossa’s
interference in their internal affairs. Barbarossa had laid waste
to Milan, but was defeated at Legnano, north-west of Milan, and admitted
defeat.

8/8/1173, The construction of what
is now known as the Leaning Tower of
Pisa began.

27/4/1167, Italians from the cities of
Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Treviso and Verona arrived at the ruins of
Milan to rebuild it. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa had
imposed a non-native ruler, or Podesta,
upon it, as he had upon other Italian cities he controlled, following the
surrender of Milan to him after his siege of it in 1158. The taxes imposed upon
Milan by the Podesta were heavy and
they revolted. In 1162 Frederick returned to Milan and this time
razed it to the ground, dispersing its inhabitants into the countryside.
Although Frederick went on to capture Rome in 1167, his
army was decimated by malaria and he had to return to Germany for
reinforcements. Facing domestic issues in Germany he could not return south and
deal with this act of defiance in rebuilding Milan. He was unable to re-enter
Italy until 1174, by which time the Lombard League had consolidated and gained
control of the central and eastern Alpine passes. In 1168 the Lombards founded
a new city, called Alessandria in honour of Pope Alexander II, to defend the
western frontier. Alessandria withstood a 6-month siege by Frederick (1174-5) and on 29/5/1176 Frederick was decisively defeated
at Legnano.

26/2/1154.(-)King
Roger II of Sicily
died and was succeeded by his son William the Bald.

25/12/1130, The NormanKing Roger II
was crowned King of Sicily in Palermo Cathedral by the anti-Pope Anacletus, who thereby
gained a powerful supporter for his claim on the Papacy against the Pope Innocent
II.

1101, Roger I of Sicily died. He had finally subdued
the whole of Sicily, taking the town of Enna from the Muslims
in 1087 and expelling the Muslims from SE Sicily in 1091. Roger I was succeeded by his
eldest son, Simon;
however Simon
died in 1105 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Roger II.

1094, First record of gondolas in Venice.

10/1/1072, The Normans conquered Palermo, Sicily.

16/4/1071. The Norman, Robert Guiscard, took Bari after
a three year siege. This ended Byzantine rule in
Italy, which had lasted five centuries. On 10/1/1072 Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger
took Palermo in Sicily.

1059, Pope Nicholas II invested the Norman
leader, Robery
Guiscard, with the Dukedoms of Apulia, Catalonia and Sicily. The
Papacy had initially been opposed to the growth of Norman power in southern
Italy, but a Norman victory at Civitato in 1053 forced the Popes to reconsider.

1016, The Normans were ‘invited’ to help liberate
southern Italy from Byzantine rule.

1/8/902. The Arabs captured Taormina, which completed their
conquest of Sicily from Byzantium.

878, Taormina,
Sicily, fell to the Saracens.

869, The Arabs
captured Malta.

10/8/843, The Treaty of
Verdun divided the Holy Roman Empire into three equal sharesThe imperial crown and central portion from
Frisia to Italy went to Lothair.Louis the
German received Germany, and Charles
the Bald, son of Pepin, received
France.

5/5/840, One of the sons of Charlemagne, Emperor Louis of Bavaria, died of
fright during a solar eclipse.His other
sons quarrelled, causing the division of his empire into France, Germany, and Italy, see 843.

831, Palermo,
Sicily, fell to the Saracens.

740, The
Saracen invasions of Sicily began.

607, Venice elected its first Doge, and began its rise to
become a major power in the Mediterranean. The fish and salt trade, and
Venice’s central location, helped it become very wealthy.

1/4/568. King Albion of the Lombards
(King since 565, died 573), a Germanic tribe, assembled an army that
included his allies, 20,000 Saxons, in order to cross the Alps and form a
settlement in Italy. The Lombards may have been invited to attack Italy by the
Byzantine General Narses. Milan was
occupied by the Lombards on 4/9/569 and Lombard rule established in northern
Italy.

552, King Totila, Ostrogoth, killed fighting Byzantium
(King Narses) at the
Battle of Taginae. In 553 Narses again took
Roma and Naples for Byzantium.

550, The
Ostrogoth King Totila
reconquered Rome.

540, The
Ostroghtic King Totila took Italy
from Byzantium.

534, Malta
taken by Byzantium (who held it until 870).

2/10/534.Death of Athalaric, King of
the Ostrogoths in Italy. Grandson of Theodoric, he was
born in 516 and became King in 526; aged ten, his mother Amalasuntha held the Regency.

15/3/493, Odoacer was killed
by Theodoric, King of
the Ostrogoths.

26/2/493, Ravenna capitulated to Theodoric, King of
the Ostrogoths.

30/9/489, Theodoric conquered
Verona.

452, Venice had become a thriving merchant city, founded by
refugees from the Huns invading Italy.

25/3/421,Venice was founded at twelve o'clock noon
(according to legend) with the dedication of the first church, San Giacomo, on
the islet of Rialto (Italy).

401, The Visigoths invaded Italy.

3/9/301, The republic of San
Marino was established (traditional date).